French EU presidency cost €1m a day

Nicolas Sarkozy at a European Council summit in December. Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images

A total of €1m was spent every day during the French presidency of the EU, one of the costliest in the union's history, it emerged today.

France spent an estimated €171m (about £155m) during the six months that it held the role, compared with an average of €70m-€80m, according to France's national audit office.

The cost is significantly greater than previous French presidencies, estimated at €14m in 1995 and €57m in 2000.

A dinner for European heads of state to mark the beginning of the Mediterrannean summit, at the Grand Palais in Paris in July last year, cost €1m, and the summit cost a total of €16.6m. A total of €4,38m was spent on installing, cleaning and disassembling the event, the podium cost €301,208, while gardening costs amounted to €194,977 and €91,456 was spent on the carpet, Le Figaro reported.

The head of the senate finance committee, Jean Arthuis, last week said the huge costs were a result of poor management and an excessively ambitious programme. He said the "hyperactive" president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had been praised for his diplomatic efforts to tackle the economic crisis and broker peace between Russia and Georgia, but the general success of the period was not down to the vast amount spent.

"Not all the 500 events organised by the French presidency were essential and their number did not contribute to the French success, which was based on two or three events like the handling of the financial crisis or war in Georgia," Arthuis said.

He said accounts for the 489 events – including 328 seminars, 25 interministerial meetings and nine international summits – had been opaque and it wasn't always clear who had paid for what. "This lack of transparency stems from the fact that many events were set up at the last minute."

Despite the large sums spent, the presidency had come in €28m under budget and the overall bill was comparable to that of other big countries holding the rotating presidency, such as Germany in 2007, Arthuis added.